Friday, March 03, 2006

Silver- and Small-screen Follies.

Okay, now, I'm not very knowledgeable in marketing or in advertising. But every once in a while, I come across a movie tagline that is just so creepy and wrong that it's a wonder that those people who do study marketing and advertising didn't catch it before I did.

There's this new movie coming out in Britain, called Stormbreaker. It's starring many famous British gents, namely Ewan McGregor, Bill Nighy, and Robbie Coltrane, and it's about a 14-year-old boy who moonlights as a spy. Sounds a little like Agent Cody Banks, right? Now, the idea of a teenage spy is not entirely unappealing, and the guy who plays the, er, Stormbreaker, Alex Rider (Alex Pettyfer) is very, very pretty.

But get the tagline: You're Never Too Young To Die. What the hell? Could somebody please tell me how this tagline could be anything but disturbing and depressing? I mean, the whole point of spy and criminal-heist movies is that we suspend our disbelief. The reasons these movies are fun, and not horrifying, is because we, as the audience, convince ourselves that no matter how much trouble they get in, the main characters will come out okay.

That's why, at the prospect of a 14-year-old spy, I'm more intrigued then curious as to why this boy's parents would allow him to be a spy in the first place. I'm sure if Alex Rider's parents saw the tagline, You're Never Too Young To Die, they'd yank him right out of spy-school, or whatever, and ground him for the rest of his life.

There's no way in hell that a 14-year-old would be a spy, so don't trying grounding the audience in reality with creepy taglines like that. Please.

In better news, I heard it on the grapevine that there's a pilot in production for NBC called Heroes, which is supposed to be about normal, average people who discover they have superpowers (and not just the basic ones like speed and strength and X-ray vision and all that crap). Oh yeah, and it also stars the guy who provides the sole reason I tolerate the existence of Gilmore Girls, Milo Ventimiglia! Fantastic! I'm so watching it!

If, of course, the pilot is accepted - which I really hope it is, because it'll kick all kinds of ass!